Citrix Streams to The Desktop

The vendor of application delivery tools will give customers access to desktop applications even when they're off-network.

Citrix Systems (Quote), known primarily for connecting remote
workers to their corporate networks, is now offering a way to free them from
the network.

The company is releasing Presentation Server 4.5, which includes a new
streaming feature that lets customers access desktop applications as an
on-demand service, much in the same way as music or video is streamed over
the Web.

This process is entirely transparent to end users, who will access desktop
applications as if they were running locally.

The streamed applications will continue running even when users disconnect
from the network, just as if they had been installed via traditional means.
When end users re-connect, any new updates, patches or rollbacks are
automatically, and transparently, streamed to each user, ensuring they are
always working with the latest version.

Nabeel Youakim, vice president and product line executive for Citrix
Presentation Server, explained that IT managers can offer a much wider range
of desktop applications to users without worrying about version conflicts
and migration headaches because streamed applications operate in a protected
isolation environment on each user's desktop.

"This makes the Presentation Server a much more strategic product for
application delivery," he told internetnews.com.

The new release of the company's flagship product also includes improved
application performance monitoring, using technology incorporated from
Reflectent, which Citrix acquired
last May.

Citrix has also leveraged assets from its November 2004 acquisition of
secure gateway vendor Net6 to improve how Presentation Server handles
application access.

For instance, now users can be given read access to particular applications
but can be prevented from printing or saving, and access can also be
tailored to the particular device being used.

The company has also improved its ability to serve graphic displays,
allowing users to virtualize even graphics-intensive applications without
compromising the end-use experience.

"Before, you could do it, but it was slow," said Youakim.

Gartner analyst Mark Margevicius said that the new streaming capability
represents a significant change for Citrix.

"Software streaming means now they can extend their presence into the
client, which goes into a whole different ballgame," he told
internetnews.com.

Margevicius warned, however, that now that Citrix has entered the
application management arena, they will be judged against that much stiffer
competition. "The services required are different from what they were doing before," he
said.